BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI Movie Review

1957 David Lean

David Lean's best films are epics that grow from closely observed characters, or, in this case, from two characters. Col. Nicholson (Alec Guinness) and Col. Saito (Sessue Hayakawa) are reflections of each other; dedicated leaders with identical careers and identical flaws. Each views himself as a soldier and patriot, and each is so rigid in his own way that he is unable to see past immediate problems to achieve a larger goal.

The setting is a Japanese prison camp deep in the Burmese jungle. It's so remote that guards and barbwire are unnecessary. No one can escape. The Japanese are building a railroad through the jungle and using British prisoners as labor. When Col. Nicholson and his men arrive at the camp, Col. Saito informs them that everyone, including officers, will work on the construction of a bridge. Nicholson, who carries a copy of the Geneva Convention in his breast pocket, says that is against the rules. Saito has him beaten and thrown into an oven-like outdoor metal cell. Nicholson refuses to relent and their war of wills in engaged. At the same time, a captured American, Cmdr. Shears (William Holden), attempts a desperate escape.

The rest of the film follows parallel tracks—often apparent but sometimes dis-guised—as, eventually, Nicholson and Saito work to build the bridge while Shears finds himself dragooned into Maj. Warden's (Jack Hawkins) commando unit to go back to the camp and destroy the bridge. Within that simple structure, the story explores questions of loyalty, duty, responsibility, command, the relationship between officers and their men, and, in a sense, even slavery. Though, in 1957, the script was credited to novelist Pierre Boulle (who did not even speak English), it was actually written by the blacklisted Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, with more work by Calder Willingham. (The Best Screenplay Oscar was awarded to Boulle. The Academy amended its McCarthyera “political correctness” in 1984, giving credit where it was due. By then, Wilson was already dead and Foreman died the day after the announcement.)

The film gives a conventional 1950s Hollywood gloss to life in a Japanese prison camp, but that's not the point; the characters and the insanity of their situation are. The director and cast are attempting to make entertaining escapism with a realistic psychological dimension. After a richly layered conclusion, the film's unsubtle message is unsubtly stated by the doctor, Maj. Clipton (James Donald, who would play much the same role in The Great Escape) when he says, “Madness! Madness!”

The film is also one of the first post-war American attempts to depict the Japanese in a fully human, non-stereotypical role. Hayakawa and Guinness are perfectly cast. Their scenes together, and their reactions to each other, are the key moments. Don't miss the superb cut from one to the other about midway through Nicholson's moment of triumph. Also, this is a film that should be seen in a widescreen version if at all possible. Lean uses his entire frame, particularly in the two-shots where Nicholson and Saito are on screen together. The pan-and-scan tape is forced to resort to several inelegant chops to show the essential reaction shots.

The visual image that brings the two men together is a heavy sledgehammer. It's seen first when Nicholson is locked in the “hotbox” and then reappears later when the two men are using a similar hammer to mount a sign on their completed bridge. Inevitably, the primary focus is on Nicholson, but Saito is presented as an equally sympathetic and complex character. In fact, his emotional and cultural conflicts cut more deeply than Nicholson's. (Guinness won the Best Actor Oscar for his work; Hayakawa was nominated for Supporting Actor but lost to Red Buttons in Sayonara.)

The third protagonist, Shears, is the opposite of the first two. While they (and Maj. Warden) embrace duty and devotion, Shears has to be dragged kicking and flailing every inch of the way. Finally, the jungle is almost as important as any of the characters. In the second half, several shots of a sunlit forest crossed by the shadows of thousands of huge bats are remarkable. (The film was made in Sri Lanka, then called Ceylon.) In that part, the focus of the film splits between those who are trying to build the bridge and those who would destroy it. In the end, of course, the story is much more complicated than that, and the double-edged conclusion underlines the film's several ironies. Curiously, that ending was criticized at the time for being ambiguous on one important point. Today, the ambiguity seems unimportant compared to the film's brilliant combination of conflict and character revelation.

Cast: William Holden (Shears), Alec Guinness (Col. Nicholson), Jack Hawkins (Maj. Warden), Sessue Hayakawa (Col. Saito), James Donald (Maj. Clipton), Geoffrey Horne (Lt. Joyce), Andre Morell (Col. Green), Ann Sears (Nurse), Peter Williams (Maj. Reeves), John Boxer (Maj. Hughes), Percy Herbert (Grogan), Harold Goodwin (Baker), Henry Okawa (Capt. Kanematsu), Keiichiro Katsumoto (Lt. Miura), M.R.B. Chakrabandhu (Yai); Written by: Carl Foreman, Michael Wilson; Cinematography by: Jack Hildyard; Music by: Malcolm Arnold. Producer: Sam Spiegel, Columbia Pictures. British. Awards: Academy Awards '57: Best Actor (Guinness), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Director (Lean), Best Film Editing, Best Picture, Best Score; American Film Institute (AFI) '98: Top 100; British Academy Awards '57: Best Actor (Guinness), Best Film, Best Screenplay; Directors Guild of America Awards '57: Best Director (Lean); Golden Globe Awards '58: Best Actor—Drama (Guinness), Best Director (Lean), Best Film—Drama; National Board of Review Awards '57: Best Actor (Guinness), Best Director (Lean), Best Supporting Actor (Hayakawa), National Film Registry '97; New York Film Critics Awards '57: Best Actor (Guinness), Best Director (Lean), Best Film; Nominations: Academy Awards '57: Best Supporting Actor (Hayakawa). Budget: 3M. Running Time: 161 minutes. Format: VHS, Beta, LV, Letterbox.